Bailly, duly informed, sent three commissaries and a battalion.
Other commissaries traversed the quarters of the capital, reading to the people the proclamation of the magistrates and the address of the National Assembly.
The ground of the Bastille was occupied by the national guard and the patriotic societies, which were to go thence to the field of the Federation.

Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Freron, Brissot, and the principal ringleaders of the people had disappeared; some said in order to concert insurrectional measures, at Legendre's house in the country; others, in order to escape the responsibility of the day.

The former version was the more generally accredited, from Robespierre's known hatred to Danton, to whom Saint Just said, in his accusation--"Mirabeau, who meditated a change of dynasty, appreciated the force of thy audacity, and laid hands upon it.

Thou didst startle him from the laws of stern principle; we heard nothing more of thee until the massacres of the Champ-de-Mars.

Thou didst support that false measure of the people, and the proposition of the law, which had no other object than to serve for a pretext for unfolding the red banner, and an attempt at tyranny.
The patriots, not initiated in this treachery, had opposed thy perfidious advice.